Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

My first thought would be a very basic water filter made with materials they would already have.

 kodos wrote:
Science is a bad example, simply because christianity in the early centuries was a driving force behind it as understanding gods creating was a big part of it, as well as the clergy being the only one having the time to do studies that would last more than a single person's life

that science cannot contradict religion is much more modern and came up past medieval time when taking the bible literally was in important argument between the religious groups and also the scientist took the teaching literal (the arguments against Darwins theory did not came from the church but other scientist)

in the medieval period religion was not the problem for science but antiquity was, as ancient Rome and Greece was seen as superior and anything that those found was right (it was the Greek who did not opened human bodies but described the body by studying pigs, yet everything that was different was seen as rare mutation later as the Greeks cannot be wrong)

no one really claimed everything beneficial came from it, and the question is what "everything" is and what are western thoughts

democracy already exited prior but in a very limited way and killing opposition or people whose opinion the ruler did not like something normal
slaves being seen as humans and not just things or woman having rights, not so much

Except that most of that is wrong. Except the bit about the clergy being the only ones with the time and resources. Everyone else was kept too poor or ignorant. But a couple of priests and monks doing a bit of research in their spare time (and discarding results that didn't fit their belief system) doesn't exactly qualify as "driving scientific research". Glorifying God was much more important.

While most people did look back on Rome as a past Golden Age, according to the church, there couldn't possibly have been any significant knowledge (particularly moral) prior to Jesus - so any ancient Greek manuscripts of say Plato pertaining to it that were discovered were destroyed.
Not to mention thoughtless destruction - paper was rare, so it's not unheard of for monks to have erased priceless treatises by for example Aristotle in favour of a hymn or poem praising God.

The reason we still have as much Greek and Roman philosophy as we do isn't Christianity, it's Islam. After the Reconquista their scholars left behind a bunch of (copies of) ancient Greek and Roman documents that was in part responsible for the revival of interest in those areas in Europe.

I think its also important to highlight how simplified we are trying to make this discussion. Compressing thousands of years of Christianity and wide geographic spread as well into very short concepts is never ever going to work.

There will be periods of history when regions of Christianity were pro science and regions where it was anti science. Even with wide dictates from a central source you'd still have local variation, interpretations and so forth.


We'd have to actually drill down into specific regional and timeframe slots to start unjumbling it all; otherwise we can all make quite large blanket statements which will be "true" for different spots.

Bran Dawri wrote:

 kodos wrote:
Science is a bad example, simply because christianity in the early centuries was a driving force behind it as understanding gods creating was a big part of it, as well as the clergy being the only one having the time to do studies that would last more than a single person's life

that science cannot contradict religion is much more modern and came up past medieval time when taking the bible literally was in important argument between the religious groups and also the scientist took the teaching literal (the arguments against Darwins theory did not came from the church but other scientist)

in the medieval period religion was not the problem for science but antiquity was, as ancient Rome and Greece was seen as superior and anything that those found was right (it was the Greek who did not opened human bodies but described the body by studying pigs, yet everything that was different was seen as rare mutation later as the Greeks cannot be wrong)

no one really claimed everything beneficial came from it, and the question is what "everything" is and what are western thoughts

democracy already exited prior but in a very limited way and killing opposition or people whose opinion the ruler did not like something normal
slaves being seen as humans and not just things or woman having rights, not so much

Except that most of that is wrong. Except the bit about the clergy being the only ones with the time and resources. Everyone else was kept too poor or ignorant. But a couple of priests and monks doing a bit of research in their spare time (and discarding results that didn't fit their belief system) doesn't exactly qualify as "driving scientific research". Glorifying God was much more important.

While most people did look back on Rome as a past Golden Age, according to the church, there couldn't possibly have been any significant knowledge (particularly moral) prior to Jesus - so any ancient Greek manuscripts of say Plato pertaining to it that were discovered were destroyed.
Not to mention thoughtless destruction - paper was rare, so it's not unheard of for monks to have erased priceless treatises by for example Aristotle in favour of a hymn or poem praising God.

The reason we still have as much Greek and Roman philosophy as we do isn't Christianity, it's Islam. After the Reconquista their scholars left behind a bunch of (copies of) ancient Greek and Roman documents that was in part responsible for the revival of interest in those areas in Europe.

That is also just not true from a religious doctrine standpoint either even going Off the western Roman church which evolved into the catholic one considering the stance of "virtous pagans".
To the contrary a Lot of sophistry and greek philosophy was kept around in catholic cannon and treatises.

Solar powered pocket calculator.

 Overread wrote:
I think its also important to highlight how simplified we are trying to make this discussion. Compressing thousands of years of Christianity and wide geographic spread as well into very short concepts is never ever going to work.

There will be periods of history when regions of Christianity were pro science and regions where it was anti science. Even with wide dictates from a central source you'd still have local variation, interpretations and so forth.

We'd have to actually drill down into specific regional and timeframe slots to start unjumbling it all; otherwise we can all make quite large blanket statements which will be "true" for different spots.

Completely agree. Christianity, like all long-lived cultural expressions, has been many things to many people over the centuries. Probably at least as many as there have been Christians.

We can argue about historical periods and who did what to whom and when all day long, and still not get at the crux of the issue.
What I've been trying to get at using history as an example is the more philosophical (but no less important) underlying issue that faith and reason simply do not mix.

But I think we've hijacked the thread into Dakka shady if not outright no-no territory enough. I'll bow out now. If anyone wants to continue the discussion, let's take it to PMs or another thread assuming the mods will let us.

why should they not mix?
because believing in a god somehow prevents reason, did Galileo's faith in god prevented him from doing his research?

Bran Dawri wrote:
Except that most of that is wrong.

well, first of all you mean parchment, not paper as paper was available but did not last very long
hence it was one of the main reason for the loss of writings between der 3rd and 6th century, as to keep things there was the need to copy it on new paper on a regular basis and with the end of the Roman Empire also the system of constant copying broke down
and it was the church that copied everything they could on parchment as that is the one that lasts but also is very expensive, like chain the books to the shelf expensive
(and was mainly used in central and northern Europe, while southern Europe used paper)

and no, Plato was not destroyed but it was the church that collected all the writings into 2 books that made the basis for all further copies and why we still know about his writings
in addition it was the other way around, bible texts were scratched off parchment to use for something more important (hence why we know about the difference of very early bible texts, as those were found underneath newer texts)

for the scientific research, it surbased antiquity already in the 8th/9th century on all fields, acting like there was no science done because the church did not like it is more a myth of the 19th century, like even Kupernikus was part of the clergy and saying that his work does not qualify as driving scientific research is just wrong
it was the church that came up with the idea of universities and developed what we call modern education

or what to you think science developed from, that in 1500 by a miracle they made 1000 years worth of research within 50 years just because the Italians read books they thought were lost in northern Europe, or the Spanish found arabic books writing about Plato

Bran Dawri wrote:

But I think we've hijacked the thread into Dakka shady if not outright no-no territory enough. I'll bow out now. If anyone wants to continue the discussion, let's take it to PMs or another thread assuming the mods will let us.

That is a good idea, though not a new thread as discussion of Religion is not allowed here as stated in the sticky at the top of the forum

 kodos wrote:
<snip>

Look man, I already said I'm bowing out because Dakka rules.
You want to have a conversation about this, send me a PM and we'll take it from there.

Assuming you're interested in a civil conversation. The tone of your writing here was kinda confrontational. I can do that, but I'd much rather have a normal talk.

Would the Romans have been able to make black powder? I don't mean for firearms, I mean just for mining and demolition purposes.
I think they would have as the method to make it doesn't seem too complicated, but I could be missing something.

Black Powder weaponised would certainly have given them a military edge. Even if you are only thinking of using it as a blasting charge, get some of that in a lit munition and load it into a mangonel and boom you've got flying bombs to disrupt your foes.

Yeah, blackpowder would be a good one.

I'm going to go with the scientific method in general though. Romans were pretty smart. Methodical too. Introducing methodological naturalism should be like taking a fish to water.

As a bonus? A case can be made that it was at least in part the economic and scientific progress that occurred after the Black Plague that made slave labour obsolete and finally allowed basic decency and empathy to take the reins and end slavery - at least in Europe and the Americas.

 Overread wrote:
Black Powder weaponised would certainly have given them a military edge. Even if you are only thinking of using it as a blasting charge, get some of that in a lit munition and load it into a mangonel and boom you've got flying bombs to disrupt your foes.

I reckon they would use black powder for mines rather than as shells. Explosive shells are really challenging, there is a reason that solid shot was the norm for so long, reliable shells are tricky. They were used in sieges because solid shot is much less effective out of a mortar but it is only in the 19th century that round shot is phased out for field guns.

Whereas undermining was already a standard tactic that black powder makes much more efficient when creating the breach. A similar use would be placing black powder charges at weak points (like gates) using a cat. Both of these would be very simple to implement into existing Roman military doctrine. A legion is a combat engineer unit and I'd expect gunpowder to be used by them in the manner used by combat engineers in later eras.

Black powder would also be a powerful advancement for industrial applications; that’s one area where it’s a real step change from human power. Hundreds of slaves and several months to dig this tunnel, or BOOM, and the rock is gone? Not really a choice.

Also lets face it, many of these inventions are not simply one concept on their own. They are a bunch of things that go with them.

You don't just get Black Powder - you get a bunch of methods for locating, extracting, refining, producing, transporting, utilizing and so forth.

Of course the Romans could have made black powder. Its just saltpeter, charcoal, and Sulphur. Its one of those things that you just have to accidentally discover the magic combo.

If they had, I have no doubt that firearms would have been made soon after. The military potential is too obvious, and unlike China where it was historically discovered the Romans have better metallurgy AND the constant demands of external warfare to make someone think of more creative ways to use it.

Speaking of metallurgy? How much difference would giving the Romans modern steel have made, if any?

I understand they had some knowledge of steel, but not very high quality? And again, shaky knowledge suggests it was improvement in the quality of metals, and a wider availability, which hastened the Industrial Revolution?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Speaking of metallurgy? How much difference would giving the Romans modern steel have made, if any?

I understand they had some knowledge of steel, but not very high quality? And again, shaky knowledge suggests it was improvement in the quality of metals, and a wider availability, which hastened the Industrial Revolution?

Considering the size of their army and the fact that steel has less attrition than iron and more applications.... and considering they were pretty much one of the most enginerically focused civilisations we ever saw. I dare say a whole lot. Lower military upkeep, better tools, better buildings. that is going to have knock on effects that would be massive.

Depends on what you mean by high quality. Compared to the 1900s, no. Compared to the rest of the world at the time, yes.

The thing need to start understanding is that steel vs iron is not a black and white thing. Its simply a gradient. Pretty much all iron tools have carbon content in the metal, and thus are actually a form of steel. Steel has technically been made since the late bronze age when iron forging became a thing. And by the time of the Roman empire forging techniques were being used that deliberately control the carbon content. So while nobody knew what was going on at a chemical level, they were being deliberate about what they were doing. So you can properly say they were making steel.

You could of course easily give the Romans technology to make blast furnaces, as well as designs for some lightly mechanized forges. Possibly reliant on water wheels or animal power. The main thing is you need to improve production quantities to really make industrialization possible. You can make small amounts of high quality steel even with fairly primitive forges, the issue is its tough to scale it up while maintaining the primitive production line. This is where anecdotes of particular smiths or regions making high quality product comes in. That region or particular smith has his own method which is making higher quality steel tools, but its their own technique that isn't readily shared and there isn't a knowledge of the underlying chemistry to reinforce it.

That leads me to a historical rabbit hole question of “when did we figure out what makes good steel good, and how”.

Which isn’t the purview of this thread, so I’ll look into it online, see if I can find reputable sources.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
That leads me to a historical rabbit hole question of “when did we figure out what makes good steel good, and how”.

Which isn’t the purview of this thread, so I’ll look into it online, see if I can find reputable sources.

That is quite a broad question with different tiers. Nowadays we know about the role of impurities in the structure of the alloy. We've not had an understanding of elements and compounds for all that long. But you don't need that level of knowledge to know basic info about how different processes change the properties of the output, although the output is likely to be less consistent.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Re. blast furnaces- I think the earliest were in Bengal, which was probably the global leader in steel production for hundreds of years. It is thought that most "Damascus" steel* used Wootz billets traded from India, although some has been traced to local mines.


*Actual Damascus steel, not the type of pattern welding commonly marketed as such today.

Bran Dawri wrote:

 kodos wrote:
Science is a bad example, simply because christianity in the early centuries was a driving force behind it as understanding gods creating was a big part of it, as well as the clergy being the only one having the time to do studies that would last more than a single person's life

that science cannot contradict religion is much more modern and came up past medieval time when taking the bible literally was in important argument between the religious groups and also the scientist took the teaching literal (the arguments against Darwins theory did not came from the church but other scientist)

in the medieval period religion was not the problem for science but antiquity was, as ancient Rome and Greece was seen as superior and anything that those found was right (it was the Greek who did not opened human bodies but described the body by studying pigs, yet everything that was different was seen as rare mutation later as the Greeks cannot be wrong)

no one really claimed everything beneficial came from it, and the question is what "everything" is and what are western thoughts

democracy already exited prior but in a very limited way and killing opposition or people whose opinion the ruler did not like something normal
slaves being seen as humans and not just things or woman having rights, not so much

The reason we still have as much Greek and Roman philosophy as we do isn't Christianity, it's Islam. After the Reconquista their scholars left behind a bunch of (copies of) ancient Greek and Roman documents that was in part responsible for the revival of interest in those areas in Europe.

This is not entirely true. The revival of interest in those areas came first from the sack of Constantinople by the crusaders during the 4th Crusade.

The crusaders took everything they could (= they pillaged the city), including lots of old books and documents talking about those areas of interests. After that, when the crusaders came back in Europe (mainly through Italy), their influence spread to the Italian peninsula, which became the pinnacle of christian/european civilization for many european intellectuals. As a result, the other european christian kingdoms began a fierce competition to copy and surpass the Italian peninsula.

Islam and al-Andalus also played a role, no doubt about it. But their role was more in preserving the texts than in disseminating them or reviving their interest in the european christian world.

Fair enough. In neither case was the source or cause of preservation of the documents Christian (particularly Catholic) monks in Europe (Constantinople IIRC was the Vatican equivalent to Eastern Orthodoxy at the time) or a perceived reverence for ancient Greek thinkers though.

But again, off-topic and a Dakka no-no.

Dunno, in a purely historical context of who had stewardship at a given time and contributed to the preservation, it’s fascinating.

Bran Dawri wrote:
Fair enough. In neither case was the source or cause of preservation of the documents Christian (particularly Catholic) monks in Europe (Constantinople IIRC was the Vatican equivalent to Eastern Orthodoxy at the time) or a perceived reverence for ancient Greek thinkers though.

But again, off-topic and a Dakka no-no.

Indeed.

One last thing about the Eastern Roman Empire (to stay a bit on topic ), but the history of how the hatred between the western catholics and eastern catholics came to be is at the same time fascinating and absolutely sad. Forget religions entirely (the schism wasn't even that bad), its all politics and it was mainly plotted by one single crusader during the first crusade that hoped to one day rule the Byzantine Empire : Bohemond of Tarento (first prince of Antioch). To be fair, conquering lands and dynastic considerations were pretty fething important almost everywhere back then.

It's fascinating because his ambitions started with his father and because of how much a donkey-cave/genius he was regarding politics. His literally Machiavellian use of the role of frankish chroniclers during the first crusade and his political cunning combined with "modern" (for the time) means of propaganda (also used against other leaders of the crusade) are responsible for seeding the seeds of hatred between western and eastern catholics for many centuries to come.

Even though he ultimately failed at conquering the Byzantine Empire, his actions will have very long lasting consequences to the point that even in the late 1700s many western historians thought that the Byzantine Empire only got what it deserved.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Of course the Romans could have made black powder. Its just saltpeter, charcoal, and Sulphur. Its one of those things that you just have to accidentally discover the magic combo.

If they had, I have no doubt that firearms would have been made soon after. The military potential is too obvious, and unlike China where it was historically discovered the Romans have better metallurgy AND the constant demands of external warfare to make someone think of more creative ways to use it.

That's what I thought, and yet they hadn't. I guess it was just bad luck or they didn't have the opportunity to stumble on that discovery?

Make-up products not made of lead?

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Of course the Romans could have made black powder. Its just saltpeter, charcoal, and Sulphur. Its one of those things that you just have to accidentally discover the magic combo.

If they had, I have no doubt that firearms would have been made soon after. The military potential is too obvious, and unlike China where it was historically discovered the Romans have better metallurgy AND the constant demands of external warfare to make someone think of more creative ways to use it.

That's what I thought, and yet they hadn't. I guess it was just bad luck or they didn't have the opportunity to stumble on that discovery?

More or less.

According to legend, the way black powder was discovered in China was with alchemists who were trying to make an elixir of immortality for the Emperor. Whether or not this is actually true, China did/does have a very long tradition of alchemy, folk medicine, mixing up random stuff and see what it does... While Alchemy did exist basically everywhere in the past, it was particularly noteworthy in China.

Its also worth noting that the discovery of Black Powder in China goes way back, long before anybody weaponized it. It was first mentioned in an alchemical text from around 142 AD, but using it as a weapon specifically didn't show up till nearly 1000 years later. So even after discovering it, it seems using it as a weapon or in fireworks may have taken a long long time.

Ancient times are always a bit of a mix when it comes to technology

On the one hand we know that trade was extensive the world over. There are loads of interconnected networks of trade, which can move goods and ideas over vast distances. Even if no one person on the chain really recognised how far a thing had gone nor how far it was going to go, the links let things move around a lot.



At the same time with things like guilds and the general greater segmentation of education and so forth; a good amount of knowledge sat in the minds of very few people. It was likely much easier to keep knowledge restricted when there's no War Thunder forum to post the secret documents on for the world to see

We made the assumption in this thread that we'd give the Romans as a whole nation/people a knowledge - however if you had a time machine and went back to give it to one person; that person could die (and the knowledge vanishes with them); or they could greatly restrict access too it.

Maybe they take that metallurgy knowledge and use it to make really good frying pans. A secret that they pass down father to eldest son and that the family protects because it brings them wealth (doesn't have to be insane wealth either, just has to be wealth etc).

So it never gets used for swords or to develop a myriad of other reliant technologies and discoveries because its never allowed out of a very limited population and with limited originality/inventiveness at its use.

Oh, absolutely! Indeed, you often find erroneous causation attributed to the end result.

Even centuries after the Romans, when the medieval smiths were making case hardened steel, they believed what was really doing the work was the quenching of the hot blade.

Specifically, according to Theophilius in 'Divers Arts', the best steel came from quenching in the urine of a red headed boy. And that was as late as the 1100s!

It is a very safe bet that any technology, while practically applied and understood, would have its underlying principles misinterpreted.